Red Stone
by Jenn0509
Summary: Katherine Wayne Harper has been dead for eighteen years. She died a hero, leaving behind a husband and infant daughter. Her family has moved forward without her, her daughter's grown, and they're all still fighting the good fight. They never forgot her though. But she forgot them.
1. All of Me

**Here's the sequel to Red Mirror! So if you haven't read that, back up and read it first!**

**Thanks to everyone for being so patient with me! This chapter is mostly me setting up my little world. Hopefully it all works out! This chapter picks up just a few months after the epilogue to Red Mirror, so Lian is still 19.**

* * *

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Raven chanted.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Lian echoed, sitting cross legged beside her mentor and best friend.

They traded off effortlessly, eyes closed, both in deep concentration. That was until someone started banging on the door. "Please tell me that's not your husband." Raven growled, irritated.

Lian opened one eye, "Bart's smarter than to interrupt us when we're meditating."

Raven sighed, "Garfield."

"Probably!" Lian confirmed with a tiny giggle.

As the knocking resumed, Raven pulled the door open with her powers, "WHAT?"

Garfield stood on the other side of the door, apparently just realizing that he'd angered them both. "Uh, sorry. I can come back later..."

Raven sighed again, storing her patience, "What is it, Gar?"

He grinned, "Breakfast is ready!"

Raven slammed the door closed in his face. Lian chuckled at the older woman, "You're so hard on him."

"Just wait, Lian. It won't take long for Bart to start annoying you too. Marriage does that. I can make my own breakfast." Raven growled.

Lian rolled her eyes, "Relax, Rae. Bart could never annoy me! And I think it's sweet that Gar's been making you breakfast. He's really trying you know. He even asked my dad for help."

"It is sweet, just...too much for me." Raven said, totally giving up on going back to meditating, flopping back on the media room sofa.

Lian stared at her from the coffee table with a look of disapproval, "Too much? Rae, you guys are dating, living together, and it's breakfast time. Go eat with the poor man before he literally starts following you around like a puppy. That's gotten really old, and it's really obvious to everyone else that you to are having trouble in the bedroom again."

Raven glared. "Says the girl who comes to meditate every morning reeking of sex."

Lian shrugged cockily, "What can I say, Bart and I, we get each other. That and we've got our own wing of the mansion, so that makes things nice. Only one who bothers us is Ace."

"Hn." Raven grunted, "You two are odd."

"Yes, we are." Lian agreed, standing up, "This is crash and all, but I'm gonna go see what kind of trouble my man got into last night. He was out on a mission with my father."

"Still bitter about them keeping you here?" Raven asked.

Lian sighed, stretching like a cat, "A little. That's what happens when you're related to half the League though. They all still see me as the little girl that ran around making them smile."

"Well, at least they let you on a team." Raven said, trying to be helpful. Since they were both empaths, she and Lian fed off one another constantly, and the last thing the Tower needed was to have them both be depressed.

It had happened before, and it usually meant that the other Titans were in deep shit. Raven had been with the Titans for six years before Lian and Bart had moved in. Nothing had been the same since. Lian and Bart really were a breath of fresh air. Sexually charged fresh air. They were young to be married, but Raven and Garfield had been dating for years, and she couldn't get over her issues. Part of her wondered just how long Garfield would wait on her.

"True." Lian said, cracking her neck, sensing Raven's quickly souring mood. She changed the subject quickly, "Things have been so slow these last few weeks."

Raven almost smiled. Only Lian would itch for life or death situations, "Well, most of the H.I.V.E. are locked up at the moment, and Slade's gone under the radar. Think of it as a vacation."

"GREETINGS FRIENDS!" Starfire yelled as she entered the tower, making both empaths flinch.

"There went our quite morning." Raven grumbled.

Lian shook her head, a smile on her face, "Let's just hope she didn't bring home any new pets."

The Devil flashed across Raven's face, "I'll kill her."

"Aww, don't do that, then we couldn't have the satisfaction of watching my Uncle Dick freak out about his attraction to the incredibly immature alien who's actually older than ninety-eight percent of the League." Lian said gleefully.

Raven shrugged, "True. That's always amusing."

"Always." Lian confirmed, tossing a t-shirt on over the tank top she'd been meditating in. "Don't leave Garfield waiting for too long, please!" She called as she left the room.

Raven slammed the door shut behind her, dislodging a tiny green bat from above the door.

Lian scooped the creature up gently, "Come on, Gar, she'll come around, I'm sure."

He turned into a puppy and licked her face.

"Should I be jealous?" Bart asked, suddenly standing at the end of the hall.

Lian put Garfield on the ground, telling him to go down to the kitchen and to leave Raven alone for a bit. "Not in the least, babe." Lian told Bart as he grabbed her up in a fierce kiss.

"I missed you." He said, nuzzling her cheek.

Lian smiled, "I'm glad, because I missed you too." Bart pushed her up against the wall, forcing her legs around his waist as he kissed a trail down her neck, "Man, you really did miss me."

Bart laughed against her skin, "Yeah, and let me tell you, it's really awkward when you keep getting hard-ons thinking about your wife while you're out with her father trying to catch bad guys."

Lian gave him an overly sympathetic look, "Poor baby. We'll just have to make that all better now, won't we?"

Raven floated by just in time for the door to their bedroom to slam shut, "Eww."

"You ready for some of B-Boy's tofu eggs?" Cyborg asked loudly from right behind her.

Raven shivered through her rapid increase in heart rate from fear, "I don't eat fake meat."

Cyborg made a face, "Awe, Rae, it's not that bad! And if you wash 'em down with waffles, they're great!"

"And now you're quoting a cereal box." Raven said dryly, "Maybe I should just go back to bed."

He blew a raspberry at her in response. Very mature.

She was still pushing the tofu eggs around on her plate when Bart and Lian made their way to the kitchen an hour later, "What's up, mis amigos!" Bart yelled.

Starfire lit up, "Hello my red-headed Glorfbags!"

Raven resisted the urge to stab her knife through her eye.

"Hey, Star! What's for breakfast?" Bart asked, sliding onto one of the barstools.

Lian leaned over the back of the sofa, stomach in the air, looking up at Terry, who was deeply invested in the video game he and Cyborg were playing. "Any missions?"

The current Robin shook his head, tapping a fist on her forehead fondly, "Nothing so far."

Lian wrinkled her nose, "I'm bored, and if Bart and I stay in our room anymore we're going to kill each other."

"Hey, that's insulting." Bart yelled from his spot at the bar.

Lian laughed, "I love you, but seriously, not all of us have super speed. I'm only human after all."

He laughed flirtatiously, "That's not what you said last week."

"Okay, Bart, let me find a mission to stick you two on before you both make me hurl." Terry growled, handing his game controller to Beast Boy.

Lian pulled herself back into a standing position, an effortless display of her core strength, "Thank God!"

"Don't you usually go bother other people when you're not needed here?" Terry asked his older niece.

"Yeah, but after my last stunt in the Batcave Gramps banned me unless there's someone else there. Bummer." Lian said, leaning over his shoulder as he checked the computer.

"What did you do anyway?" Terry asked.

"I may have rerouted some airplanes...on accident of course. Not what I was intending to do, but Gramps didn't care about that." She told him.

"That's my baby." Bart yelled from the other side of the room.

Lian scoffed, "It was your idea, Gearhead."

"Hey, like you said, I'm the speedy Gearhead, you're the programmer genius." Bart said, shoveling some of the reheated tofu eggs into his mouth. "Nice, BBoy, these are great!"

"Yeah!" Garfield yelled, glad at least one of his young friends liked his tofu. Even Starfire was starting to eat the rest of the fridge and leave the tofu.

Lian, Terry, and Raven wouldn't touch the stuff if the fridge was empty.

It hurt him, it really did, but at least the speedster had his back.

"What's that?" Lian asked, pointing at the screen.

"I don't know." Terry muttered, zooming in on the camera, "You've got yourself a robbery. Police haven't been notified. Looks like the thief is taking his time."

"Goody!" Lian squealed, causing her uncle to flinch.

"Please don't be so happy." Terry asked.

Lian kissed his cheek, trying to cheer him up, "You woke up on the wrong side of the bed, grumpy."

"Yeah, well, Dana cancelled date night again, so I'm either about to get dumped, or she's just really busy." He grumbled.

Lian kissed him again, "Well, maybe Niece Lian needs to have some girl chat with her, because you are way too cute to dump, trust me."

He looked at her doubtfully, "If you say so."

"I say so, and if it gets down to it, I'll totally kick her ass." Lian told him, patting his shoulder as she walked towards the room she and Bart used when they were in the Tower.

"OOH! May I participate in the kicking of the ass?" Starfire yelled.

As the doors whistled shut behind her, Lian heard Raven explaining to Starfire that it was a joke.

Lian wasn't feeling the joke, not really.

She touched the frame of the photo she took with her between the Tower, the Mansion, and the Watchtower. "Happy Birthday, Mom."

That was the real reason she was in the Tower. She couldn't stand to face her family. Bart knew it, and so did Raven and Terry, but they knew better than to say anything. It was easier for her to pretend to be happy when they pretended she was happy. And she was, happy most days, but some days she couldn't keep the ache at bay. Christmas, her birthday, Mother's day, and, always, her mother's birthday.

She and Bart hadn't even had sex, he'd held her while she'd cried hysterically in their room. But they kept up the act. It was easier. She could only cry for so long though, and had pulled Bart from their room so she could find something to beat up on. She was just a little like her grandfather.

"Shit, I'm impersonating Raven." Lian said to herself as she sulked to the weapons room, her suit tight against her skin.

"That's not a bad thing." Raven said, drifting from the shadows behind her.

Lian forced a little laugh, "No offense."

"None taken. You want to talk about it?" Raven asked.

Lian smiled, "Not really. You know me, Raven on the inside, Starfire on the outside. My special kind of screwed up."

Raven snorted, a tiny smile passing quickly over her face, "You don't have near the range to cover me and Star. Anyway, Bart wanted to let you know that you're dad might appreciate a call today."

"Bart would send you." Lian said, pulling her weapons on. "I'll call him tonight."

Raven nodded, "I'm talking to someone, by the way...about...you know."

Lian smiled, "Good, you deserve a chance at being happy."

"Happy." Raven said with a scoff, "You should go if you don't want the party to be over before you get there."

"Yeah, that would suck." Lian said under her breath, sliding her mask on.

"Want me to come?" Raven offered.

Lian shook her had, "Nah, this is my party. Besides, I hardly ever get to do any heavy lifting here with all of you guys. See ya!" She yelled to them all, leaving quickly.

"Really, what idiot breaks into STAR labs?" Lian said to herself, entering the building, checking the downed security guards as she went. All dead. She tapped her comm, activating it, "Hey, guys, this isn't just a smash and grab. I need back up. Standby."

She tapped the comm off, not wanting it to alert anyone to her presence.

The thief was a woman.

"Don't move." She said, pointing an arrow at the woman.

The woman straightened from the drawer she was rifling through. "Let me go, and we won't have to fight." The woman said silkily.

"I can't do that, you're stealing." Lian said, her head aching from the oddness she was sensing from the woman.

"You must have skills to be involved with the Justice League." The woman said, "If you wanted, you could steal too. I almost didn't know you were coming up on me. You breath too loudly though. You're anxious, not collected."

"I don't need someone like you telling me what I am." Lian hissed, squinting her eyes against the pain.

"So you're not going to let me just leave with what I want?"

"No." Lian said honestly, raising the arrow again.

"You're young, so I'm gonna try not to kill you." The woman said.

Lian scoffed, "Who are you?"

There was a split second of stillness, and then the woman was behind her. Lian's head was splitting now that she was closer. Not normal. Not right. Her vision swam, and the woman wrapped her arms around her, "Sorry, little girl. It's just not your day. I like your spunk though, hopefully you live. I'd like to see you all grown up and worth my time."

Lian felt a sharp prick in her ribs and with her next breath, her mouth was filled with foamy blood.

The woman laid her down, almost gently, "I'm going to get what I came for."

Lian watched her rifle through the box again, each breath getting harder and harder to take, the foamy blood trailing out of her mouth and onto the ground.

The woman left, her eyes drifted closed, and then Lian felt hands on her. She knew it was Bart, without even opening her eyes. "Hang in there, Li. I can't lose you, not again. I can't survive this world without you." Lian forced her eyes open, and tried to tell him that she wasn't going to be so easy to get rid of. She couldn't speak though, not with the blood from her punctured lung trying to come back up her throat.

* * *

_"What would I do without your smart mouth?_  
_Drawing me in, and you kicking me out_  
_You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down_  
_What's going on in that beautiful mind_  
_I'm on your magical mystery ride_  
_And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright_

_My head's under water,_  
_But I'm breathing fine._  
_You're crazy and I'm out of my mind._

_'Cause all of me_  
_Loves all of you_  
_Love your curves and all your edges_  
_All your perfect imperfections_  
_Give your all to me_  
_I'll give my all to you_  
_You're my end and my beginning_  
_Even when I lose I'm winning_  
_'Cause I give you all of me_  
_And you give me all of you"_

**All Of Me  
**By: John Legend

* * *

Did you think I was going to start off so fluffy? ;)

Let the theories come on in!

Reviews are welcome, especially so I can tell how many of you guys followed me over!

-Jenn


	2. This Is How A Heart Breaks

**Here's chapter two! Forgot to mention that, in my head, Lian is pretty much actress Jane Levy.**

* * *

"Dad, I'm fine." Lian repeated for the hundredth time.

"You could have died, Lian!" Red yelled, continuing to pace across the recovery room floor like he'd been doing since she'd woken up after surgery.

"Yes, but I didn't. I'm going to be released back to the field in a week, so it obviously wasn't that bad." She argued.

Bart pipped up from her side, "Honestly, man, the blood and shit was way worse than it actually was. I mean, barely nicked her lung, more show than actual injury."

Red was aghast, "How can you encourage her?"

Bart shrugged, "I didn't marry a suburban housewife. It's usually better just to support her. She's going to do what she wants either way. Li's stubborn as a mule."

"Yes, she's stubborn, like her mother, and look where that got Kat, dead in a box in the ground!" Red yelled.

Lian stared at him, her chest aching in more than just the pain from her shallow stab wound. "That's not fair." She whispered.

"What's not fair is my wife struck out on her own and got herself killed, and for some reason our daughter wants to do the same damn thing!" Red yelled, pulling at his hair.

Raven was at the door, "Red, you need to leave right now. Lian needs some breathing room." She gestured to Bart, "You too."

Bart kissed Lian's temple, "I'll be right outside once you get your mojo under control, okay? We've got a game of tic-tac-toe we need to finish."

He zipped out the door, followed by Red.

"Thank you." Lian said to her mentor.

Raven nodded, "I could feel you six floors down. Figured you needed some help before you brain blasted them."

Like Raven blowing things up when she was upset, Lian would project her own emotions if things got to be too much, and it was never pretty. When in battle, she could channel that mental stun gun pretty effectively, but when she got upset, all bets were off. When she was ten, she'd put Tim Drake in a coma for a week for jumping out of an air shaft and startling her while she was upset about a test grade. That was why her almost daily meditation sessions with Raven were so important. She had a very fragile hold on her power and Raven knew it. Lian gave a tiny smile, "That bad, huh? Sorry."

"It's alright. Although between you and Starfire, my head is killing me." Raven said, assuming a hovering lotus position, "Let's meditate."

Lian sat up as best as she could, crossing her legs loosely, joining Raven, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos."

Two hours later, Bart knocked gently on the door, pausing them mid 'Zinthos'. "Yes?"

He poked his head inside, "Li, your Grams is here."

"Who told her?" Lian asked with a groan.

Selina pushed through the door, shoving Bart to the side, "You grandfather. Terry called to cancel dinner tonight, and I smelled a rat." She brushed some of Lian's riotous curls out of her face, "Are you okay, sweetheart?"

"I'm fine, really. The blade was short, and if my head hadn't been about to explode because of my own power, I probably would have been able to get her before the whole foam blood thing became an issue." Lian told her honestly. Yes, her chest was aching, but her lung hadn't even collapsed. She'd had worse training injuries.

Selina smiled, "Ah, 'foam blood thing', what an inconvenience. Whoever stabbed you is cruel though, I can say that much."

"What do you mean?" Lian asked, watching Raven phase through the wall.

Selina fussed with her hair again, "I was never one for violence, but I know enough. A puncture lung, Lian, without your little speedster, it would have been much worse. And without your team knowing you were in trouble, you would have been left to a very slow death. That's how she killed the security guards."

"Just how much did you get out of my grandfather?" Lian questioned.

Selina smiled evilly, "Everything. I even got the coroner reports to read on the trip here."

"You're awful." Lian said with a smile.

"I know." Selina agreed, tucking Lian in tighter, "You're looking pale, I'll let you rest."

Lian was exhausted, so she didn't protest. "Okay, let me know if they find anything, won't you?"

Selina nodded, kissing her cheek, "Of course, sweetheart. And if you need anything, just ask. Isis will come find me."

Lian pulled the grey cat up the bed, letting her curl up in her arms. The cat purred happily. Lian was her second favorite human, after all. "Thanks, Grams."

Selina stalked out of the room, a pleased smile on her face.

Lian drifted in and out of sleep for the next few hours.

"The building had a secondary camera system." Dick explained to those gathered around him in the core of the Watchtower. "Whoever she is, she didn't know about it. This is the first time we've gotten cameras on her while she's in action."

Selina judged the holograph critically, "Nice form, quick, slight limp on her left leg."

Dick arched an eyebrow at his adoptive step-mother, "A limp? How can you tell?"

"Don't second guess me, Dick." Selina snapped. He was her least favorite of all her pseudo children. Terry was always the favorite, even if he did have that awful dog.

He made a growling noise that Bruce cut off with his arrival. He eyed his wife curiously, "How did you get here before me?"

"I've got connections." She answered simply.

Bruce resisted the urge to roll his eyes. That would only give her further satisfaction.

"Does no one care that I'm the Batman now? I think I can analyze these tapes on my own." Dick protested.

Starfire was the only one that didn't look pissed by his tantrum, floating around laughing, "Oh, Dick, we shall celebrate your promotion for the next month! Let me sing our song of congratulations, all two hundred verses!"

Selina cringed along with everyone else, "Starfire, dear, not now."

Starfire clamped her mouth shut, nodding. For some reason no one was sure of, she was terrified of Selina. And Selina was never one to let the opportunity for fear to pass her by. In her heart, she was still a villainess.

"That wasn't nice, Selina." Dick chastised.

Selina glared at him, "Boy, don't make me use Bruce's cane to beat you."

He averted his gaze back to the hologram. Even in her sixties, Selina was fierce. She'd hung up her cowl after Kat had died, but she was still known to open a can of whoop ass on people that annoyed her or harassed her cats.

Bruce scowled at her, "Selina."

She went to his side, kissing him gently, "Hello, handsome."

"Who stabbed my granddaughter?" Bruce asked, voice hard, using one hand to force Selina to sit next to him.

Dick shrugged, "No clue. MO is consistent with robberies that have occurred over the last ten years, but there's never been any video until today. Or survivors, actually. As far as I know, Lian's the only person who's seen her."

"Cheshire?" Bart offered.

"No, she's on vacation with Artemis, a truce or something like that." Dick answered.

"Paula wanted to see London." Selina filled in. At the odd look she got from Dick, she shrugged, "What? Paula and I are best friends. We talk." She looked peeved, "That's all I get to do these days. Bruce, hon, can I have a new necklace?"

He shot her serious side eye, "No stealing. You're a reformed convict, remember?"

She sighed, petulantly, "I know." Isis slinked through one of the doors, and Selina was on her feet in an instant, all humor gone, "Lian."

They raced to her room, but Bart got there first. "Lian! Stop! You're gonna hurt yourself!"

She was screaming, eyes wide in terror, fighting against him, trying to get out of the bed. "They won't stop! Make it stop!" She collapsed, sobbing, "It hurts, it hurts so bad."

Bart curled himself around her, eyes wide in fear as he looked at the others, but brushed a hand over Lian's hair soothingly, "It's okay, Li. It was just a nightmare, You're okay. I've got you." Her eyes closed, and she drifted back to sleep.

"What the hell was that?" Dick asked, voicing what everyone else was thinking.

Bart sighed, "Nightmare. She's been having them more and more, ever since we got married. She never remembers them in the morning, but they scare the shit out of me. I haven't been sleeping well because of them."

"No wonder you have begun looking like the ass." Starfire said helpfully.

Bruce was scowling, "You should have said something. We need to have her scanned by Miss Martian or Martian Manhunter."

"You know, you could just say, M'gann and J'onn. She's not a 'Miss' anymore anyway." Selina said, dabbing at Lian's sweat soaked face with a towel.

Bruce's scowl intensified, "Call them."

"On it." Dick said, pulling Starfire with him as he left.

"Did she pull her stitches?" Selina asked.

Bart pulled up the cotton shirt Lian was wearing, exposing her stomach and ribs, freshly marked with a one inch gash. "Looks good." He said, ghosting his fingers over the irritated and swollen skin. He couldn't stand to see her in pain.

Red was standing in the doorway, silently fuming. Bruce turned as his son in law walked away, "Red, where are you going?"

"To find the bitch that stabbed my daughter!" He yelled back, gesturing rudely.

Bart chuckled, "And he blames all the impulsiveness on Kat. He's no better."

Selina smiled fondly, "Ah, to be young again. Sometimes I regret how things ended with Talia. That Lazarus Pit could come in so handy."

Talia had been dead for fifteen years though. She'd gone after Damian, set on 'reclaiming' Damian. Just for that, Selina had been given permission to put her suit back on, and had sent the woman back to her father in pieces. She'd already lost Kat, and she would never let anyone take Damian from her. He was her son, not Talia's.

She pulled out her cellphone, slipping past her husband, "Selina, what are you doing?"

She loved that he still worried about what she was up to even though she'd really been on good behavior since the whole Talia debacle. "Calling our son so Red doesn't get himself killed. That would upset Lian so."

"You really think that's a good idea?" Bruce asked, thinking about all the times Red had tried to strangle Damian.

"I'm his mother, he'll play nice if I ask." She said confidently, calling him. "Mijo?"

She could hear the smile on Damian's voice, "Hola, Mama."

While Lian and Damian met at Chinese places, he met her at Mexican places, and they'd both taken to learning Spanish from the owners of the hole in the wall places they frequented. She dropped the playfulness though, they didn't have time for it, "Darling boy, someone stabbed Lian last night. She's going to be fine, but Red's taken it upon himself to hunt down her attacker. Would you mind keeping an eye on him?"

Damian sighed, "You ask a lot of me, Mama. Protect a man who hates me?"

"Do it for your niece who loves you." Selina countered.

"Okay." Damian agreed. He couldn't deny his mother or Lian anything.

"Thank you, my darling boy." Selina said, far too pleased with herself.

Damian chuckled, "I'm not a boy anymore, Mama."

"You'll be a boy until you give me more grandchildren, so it's your own fault." Selina snapped back playfully.

Damian packed up his stuff and continued to try to reason with his mother about why he couldn't date as a homeless avenger. Her response was that he wasn't homeless, using all of her old apartments, and that he wasn't getting any younger. "Alright, Mama. Enough. I've got to go do some work for some woman who thinks it's a good idea for me to risk my neck for the sake of some curly haired ginger girl."

Selina laughed, "I love you, Mijo."

"Love you too, Mama." He replied, hanging up the phone and searching out Red. It wasn't a hard task, he had embedded trackers in all of his family members, even Red. He was his niece's father after all.

He kept his distance, weaving through Gotham, watching as Red asked old drug connections about the mysterious woman. Because of the link his mother had given him to the Watchtower, he heard when Dick relayed a sighting to Red.

The woman was there too. Red watched from afar, and finally outed Damian, "I know you're there. You might as well make yourself useful and help me come up with a plan. We don't know a lot about her style, after all." Damian crouched next to Red, and they watched the woman empty a safety security box like she was grocery shopping.

"Well, she's very focused." Damian observed, "Knows exactly what she's going after and doesn't care who gets in her way."

"That's what Selina said. Lian's lucky to be alive." Red growled.

"Mom said Li was fine." Damian replied.

Red was not so sure. He kept his mouth shut though. The woman may be focused, but if they started fighting each other, she'd know they were there and be gone.

They attacked from both sides, but she was hardly phased, expertly defending herself from them as she got what she came for.

In a last ditch effort, Red grabbed at her blonde hair. It came with him when she kicked him away, mask and all.

He felt like she'd stabbed him. He actually wished she had. It would have hurt less.

In place of the blonde, long black curls tumbled down across her shoulders, framing a face that was in his dreams every night. Impossibly blue eyes, full lips, and pale unblemished skin.

"Kat." He said softly, her name rolling of his tongue in disbelief.

On her other side, Damian was frozen as well.

She looked confused, narrowing her crystal blue eyes at them for a second before tearing away, taking advantage of their odd stunned stillness.

Belatedly, they chased after her, but she lost them easily in the subway system three blocks over, slipping through their hands and into the darkness. "Did you see her?" Red asked, wheezing next to Damian.

Damian nodded, jaw clenched, looking far too much like his father, "I saw her. But she didn't see us, not really. A clone?"

Red shrugged, holding out his hand, "We'll find out."

Damian grinned at the strands of black hair in Red's grip, "Nice." He faltered, "She didn't recognize us. Not at all."

"No, she didn't." Red confirmed.

"What the hell are we going to do if that's not a clone?" Damian asked.

Red closed his eyes, "Shit, I don't know, Damian. I really don't know."

"Let's go. We found her once, we can find her again." Damian said.

Red nodded, "You're right. But, Damian. I don't want Lian to know." His brother in law frowned at him, "This is gonna hurt us enough either way. I don't want Lian to have to go through any of this. I don't want to go through this."

Against his better judgment, Damian promised to lie to the only person who'd cared for him unfailingly and without any desire for payment. His mother loved him now, as he loved her, but he would never forget that it had been Kat who had raised him, or the hateful glares Selina had given him as a child. He couldn't decide what outcome would hurt more, if she was real and had forgotten them, or if she was an evil clone they'd have to put down.

Red couldn't either.

* * *

_"Life is like a mean machine_  
_It made a mess outta me_  
_It left me caught between_  
_Like an angry dream I was stranded, I was stranded_

_And I'm steady but I'm starting to shake_  
_And I don't know how much more I can take_

_This is it now_  
_Everybody get down_  
_This is all I can take_  
_This is how a heart breaks_  
_You take a hit now you feel it break down_  
_Make you stay wide awake_  
_This is how a heart breaks_

_Don't you wanna go for a ride_  
_Down to the other side_  
_Feels so good you could cry_  
_Now won't you do what I told you_  
_I remember when you used to be shy_  
_Yeah, once we were so fine_  
_You and I why you gotta make it so hard on me_

_And I'm sorry but it's not a mistake_  
_And I'm running but you're getting away"_

**This is How A Heart Breaks  
**By: Rob Thomas

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Thanks so much to those of you who reviewed! Let me know what you think about this one!

-Jenn


	3. Love Don't Die

Sorry for the lag there! I was busy with end of the year school stuff and planning out the rest of this story. So far I've got about thirteen more chapters planned and that's just through this first arc! Anyway! Here's Chapter 3!

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**Love Don't Die:**

"I swear it was her." Damian cried, feeling like a teenager again.

Selina was distraught, "Damian, your sister is dead. You couldn't have seen her." She turned to Dick, "Test them for hallucinogens, won't you?" She was in full mother bear mode, and most of the Leaguers were totally unused to that level of ferocity in Selina. Damian was thirty four, but he may as well have been ten the way she was fussing over him.

"Mom, leave me alone! I'm not crazy!" Damian yelled, trying to shove her off.

She may have retired from the field after killing his other biological mother, but she was still strong for her age, and kept her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. The only way he could free himself from her grip would be to hurt her. Selina stroked his short black hair like he was one of her cats, "Calm down, and let M'gann look."

Red was struggling against J'onn. "I know what my own damn wife looks like!"

"It's been years, wishful thinking, Red." Bruce snapped harshly, pinning him down.

"Wishful thinking? Do you think I would risk changing my daughter's whole life for wishful thinking?" Red yelled, glaring at Bruce hatefully. "Lian is the only good thing I've got in my life right now, and I won't ruin her for some wishful thinking. She's had a hard enough life without all this."

"We aren't telling Lian." Bruce said instantly.

Red stilled, scowl still in place, "At least we agree on something." He shook J'onn off, looking over at his younger brother-in-law, "Damian, give it a rest. Let her look. Maybe we did imagine it, all I know is we need to find out." He gave Damian a double take, "Dude, do you have gel in your hair?"

Damian glared, "Really, now you notice? Ass."

Selina hissed softly, "Oh, honey, did you have a date?"

He blushed, "No!"

Red narrowed his eyes, "You still can't lie to me, you little shit. When we've got all this done, we're so talking."

"Dude," Damian began mockingly, "I'm thirty four, you don't get to try to pseudo parent anymore, especially now."

Selina was teary eyed, "You had a date? I interrupted you on your way to a date? I'm sorry!"

Damian hugged his mother, rolling his eyes at her dramatics. She was doing what Red was doing, trying to distract from Kat. He ran a hand down her graying brown hair, "It's okay, Mom. I'm glad I went. Someone had to be there to stop Red here from getting his ass kicked by that woman."

"What he saw is true. Identity confirmation, Helena Katherine Wayne-Harper." J'onn said, apparently having finished his scan of Red's mind.

M'gann nodded, "Same here."

"So they weren't seeing things." Bruce said slowly.

Selina took in a ragged breath, rubbing her hands on her shoulders, "So that could be Kat. She really could be alive."

"Don't get your hopes up." Bruce growled, not looking at the crushed expression on her face. That was how they worked, he didn't coddle her. "She could still be a clone or be under an illusion spell."

Dick nodded, "I'll compare DNA, but if you want me to check for cloning, I'm gonna need more of a sample."

"We need to track her down." Red said softly.

"Let's get started." Selina said, shaking off her anxiety.

Bart came inside the room, and Dick blanked the screen. "Lian's not looking so great."

"What?" Red exclaimed, grabbing the front of Bart's shirt.

Bart shook him off, "She's kind of feverish. More nightmares. She was complaining about being nauseated earlier."

"Did you get my daughter pregnant?" Red growled.

Bart rolled his eyes, "No, you ass. We're careful. Lian says she wants at least five years before kids. I'm totally fine with that. Pretty sure she's got an infection or something. Unfortunately, the best I can do is sew up battle wounds. Past that, I'm useless in the medical department."

"I'll take a look." M'gann said, smiling at Red, "She's not pregnant, Red. My uncle and I would know and she wouldn't be on missions. Actually, with her powers, we'd all know. Lian's control is tenuous at best. The hormone fluctuation would probably affect the strength of her power vastly."

"Says the woman who used to lobotomize people!" Bart snapped. "Lian's control is just fine."

M'gann scowled, an ashamed blush coloring her green features. "I'll go check on her."

Bart followed.

Lian was feverish. M'gann touched her and instantly pulled her hand back, wincing, "She's got an infection, and that tenuous control is weakening. Her body will naturally fight the infection off in a few hours, but I'll need to stay with her until Raven can return from the Titans to watch her. Otherwise, we'll all be in her nightmares."

Bart chuckled, "She plays her power down, but my girl's got something kick-ass, doesn't she?"

M'gann nodded, "Probably the strongest human empath I've ever seen. She could develop it into something more if she really wanted to. She's shown very little interest in Raven's training though."

"That's what happens when you grow up in a house full of powerless heroes. Bruce, he doesn't like relying on his super-powered peers, between him and Red, it's a miracle she's learned as much control as she has." Bart said, brushing Lian's red curls from her damp face.

She opened her eyes at his touch, whispering, "Hey."

He smiled, "Hey yourself, Princess. How you feeling?"

"Like shit." She said hoarsely. "Where's my dad?"

"He was just in the command center talking to Damian." Bart said, wishing he'd kept is mouth shut when her eyes widened.

"Uncle Damian's here? Where? Why hasn't he come to see me?" Lian asked in a rush.

Bart pushed her back down when she tried to sit, "He did. You were asleep. He's leaving soon, but I'm sure he'll be back to check up on you when you're more up for company." He hoped she didn't sense the lie. He didn't know why Damian was on the Watchtower without coming to see Lian, but he'd find out.

Lian nodded, eyelids heavy again, "Okay. Love you."

Bart grinned, kissing her forehead, "Love you too, Li." When she was asleep, he narrowed his eyes at M'gann, "Alright, Martian, spill. Why's Damian here, and why is Red not killing him?"

"I can't tell you." M'gann said stonily, imitating her uncle's favorite expression.

"Bullshit." Bart hissed, "Why the hell not? I'm the Flash these days, or has everyone failed to notice?"

"Because you'll tell her. You won't mean to, but you will. Your mind is closer to Lian's than anyone else's. She might not know how to intentionally, but she'd read it from your mind if you so much as stressed over it an instant in her presence. She loves you, and that's a weakness here." M'gann explained.

"So I'm in the dark about something that would upset me. How the hell am I not going to be stressing about that?" Bart groaned, rubbing his face.

M'gann was stoic, "You'll lie to her, or forget about it. Your choice."

He sighed, "Well, let's make small talk then. How're the kids?"

M'gann smiled, "All growing like little weeds!" She gushed for hours about the kids she and Conner were raising on the Kent farm. They weren't theirs biologically, but that didn't matter, Bart had never seen more devoted parents.

Meanwhile, Red, Damian, and J'onn had suited up to go after the woman. "Try not to hurt her." Bruce said roughly.

"You think we'd hurt her?" Damian asked, "We're more likely to hurt each other. Talk to J'onn about hurting her if you're that worried."

"Damian." Selina scolded.

"Mother." He snapped back, earning a cuff on the back of the head from his father.

"Speak to your mother like that again and I'll show you just how in shape I still am." Bruce growled, taking Selina's hand in his. "You should go home, get some rest."

She shook her head, "No, I want to be here. I need to be here." She pulled away from him and pulled Damian back into her arms, "Be careful, baby boy. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you too."

Damian breathed in her familiar scent. "I'm sorry, Mom."

Selina laughed softly, "Water under the bridge, Damian. You're upset, and I was a convenient target. It's okay, I'm upset too."

He gently shook off her embrace so he could look her in the eyes, "Doesn't excuse my behavior. I love you." The way she smiled at him was all he needed to see to know just how much she loved him. As a child, he'd have killed to see her look at him like that. It was a tragedy that it had been Kat's death that had brought them together.

But what if she wasn't really dead? He pushed the thoughts down, wary of the look J'onn shot his way as they headed out.

It took them hours to find her, but one of the chemicals she'd stolen left a very faint trail, so really, they just followed it.

She'd changed clothes, looking more like the Kat they remembered. "Why are you following me?" She asked after they'd followed her for several blocks.

"You need to come with us." J'onn said evenly.

She sneered, "I don't think so, green-man."

Damian and Red headed her off. "You don't have a choice."

"The hell I don't!" She yelled in protest, hitting Damian, hard. He crumpled.

"That was not a request." J'onn said as he came behind her and rendered her unconscious. When they returned to the Watchtower, Dick took a blood sample from her and ran off to his lab.

Red watched through one way glass as she woke up.

"You shouldn't go in there." Bruce said firmly when Red put his hand on the door knob.

Red growled at his father in law, "Why the hell not? She's my wife!"

"You hope. There's every likelihood that she's a clone or it's an illusion." Bruce said for what had to have been the hundredth time.

"There's no magic there." Zatanna said from where she'd been staring into the room for the last half hour.

"Nothing?" Red said, hope in his voice.

"Nothing." Zatanna confirmed, an uneasy smile on her pale face, "Still, that doesn't mean she's not a clone."

Red walked into the room where they'd tied her up. "Kat?"

She stared stonily at the door, "I believe I have the right to a phone call."

She had an odd accent, and it startled him. She sounded like Talia.

He found his voice after her cold eyes continued to stare at him, "No phone call here."

"Then I'm not talking."

He sighed, "I wish you would, Kat."

She wrinkled her nose, "Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Because it's your name." He said softly.

"My name is Mina." She replied, not sure why she'd told him that. He just seemed so familiar. "What's your name?" She asked before she could stop herself.

"Red." He answered, chest clenching.

"Red." She echoed, trying to place his face. She was usually very good with faces. Her curiosity got the better of her, "How's the little one? With the red curls."

Red perked up. She was asking about Lian. "Better. The knife wound got infected, but she's a fighter. You could have killed her."

"I know." She said easily. "I could have, but I didn't. Is that why you tracked me down like an animal?"

"Partially." Red admitted. "You look exactly like my wife."

She scoffed, "My only husband has been dead for five years now. I think I'd remember being married more than once."

"I think there's a lot of things you've forgotten."

She jerked against her restraints, "Let me go."

"No."

"Well then at least free one of my hands, my leg's aching like a bitch." She bemoaned.

Red stared at her oddly. "Your leg?" She nodded, eyes hard. He sank to his knees in front of her.

"Hey, stop that!" She cried when he started pushing up the left leg of her yoga pants. How had he known which leg?

There was a scar, deep, still slightly redder than the rest of her skin, right where one of the wounds that had killed her had been.

Red ran his fingers over it, eyes wide, "Oh, Kat."

She ignored the tingling of her skin at his touch. This man was some kind of sick pervert, his touch shouldn't feel good. "Get off me, you psycho. I'm not this Kat you're so crazy about."

J'onn came in and hauled Red out of the room, "You were told to wait."

"Yeah, well I've never been too great at following orders, especially when they concern Kat." Red snapped harshly.

"We don't know if that's really Kat." Bruce said from his corner, looking weary. "Dick's checking with the sample he collected when she got here. We'll know soon enough."

"I don't need a test to tell me what I already know. That's my wife!" Red yelled.

Selina was holding herself up against the wall, "Red. Enough." He stared at the woman, and she shakily sat down, "I feel it too, you know? Every fiber in my body is telling me that that's my daughter, but, Red, what if she's not? What if this is some kind of elaborate trap or distraction? We have to know for sure or we'll never be able to trust ourselves around her."

Red nodded. "You're right."

A cocky half smile pulled onto her face, "I'm always right."

"Think she's hungry?" Red asked.

Selina shrugged, "Probably, but let her ask."

"Why?"

"Because then she'll be a whole lot more appreciative." Selina drawled.

Red shook his head, "Punishment for hitting Damian?"

"Of course." Selina said, stroking a still unconscious Damian's hair, "I never did let them fight each other, I'm not going to start now."

* * *

_"If I know one thing, that's true_  
_It ain't what you say, it's what you do_  
_And you don't say much, yeah, that's true_  
_But I listen when you do_

_A thousand years go by_  
_But love don't die_

_If I know one thing, that's true_  
_It's that I'm never leaving you_  
_And you don't say much, yeah, that's true_  
_But I lose it when you do_

_Don't let them tell no lie_  
_Love don't die_

_No matter where we go_  
_Or even if we don't_  
_And even if they try_  
_They'll never take my body from your side_  
_Love don't die"_

**Love Don't Die**

**By: The Fray**

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Hope you guys enjoyed! The next chapter is totally finished already! I'll post it after I get some reviews! Keep in mind, next chapter, all your questions will be answered! Not gonna lie, the next chapter is kind of rough emotionally, but it's necessary, I promise. Piggythelaw, we're gonna find out exactly what Lian's been having those nightmares about. (Next chapter song is Whisper by Evanescence if you want to take a listen!)

Review please!

-Jenn


	4. Whisper

Okay, so this chapter has some pretty strong themes in it, so if those sorts of things bother you, just skip to the next bar line and get ready for the next chapter.

**WARNINGS:** Kidnapping, Non-Con, Stockholm Syndrome, and multiple forms of torture.

It's not pretty, but it had to be that way to make a woman like Kat totally forget her family. What I've written below is based off research I did on how to brainwash someone. It takes a long time, folks, that's all I'll say. She's been at the mercy of these people for almost two decades, so they've had a lot of time to warp her personality.

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**Whisper: Seventeen Years Ago**

Queen Bee stared down at the coffin her men were uncovering, "We need to hurry. She won't wait on us forever."

"What about the cops? Or the owners of that big ol' house?" One asked.

"I can handle them all. She's what's important." Queen Bee snapped.

"Some dead girl?" Another queried.

Queen Bee smiled, whispering to herself, "She's not dead anymore." Before ordering, "Open the coffin."

The men did what she asked, and a loud gasp echoed through the dim cemetery. "What the hell?"

Queen Bee knelt at the edge of the hole, "Hello again, Kat. I hope your nap wasn't too hard. It's difficult to get reliable help these days. Especially help that's proficient with a shovel." She gestured to one man, "Get her out, and be careful. She's regrown quite a lot of flesh in the last few days."

Tear reddened blue eyes stared up at her. A hoarse voice asked, "What happened?"

Zazzala smiled, "Oh, Kat, you died. Don't worry though, we're going to make you all better." The girl was in a pitiful state. She'd been alert longer than Zazzala had feared. She'd had time to try to claw her way out of her own grave, and was covered in blood from torn nails that were only just knitting themselves back together.

"Lian." Katherine whispered, the sudden rush of oxygen dazing her. Hyperventilating, he lashed out at one of the men, but missed terribly.

Zazzala tutted, "You don't need to worry about her anymore. Soon, you won't even remember her." The men lifted her out of the coffin, and the dress she'd been buried in edged up her thigh, exposing a strip of scar tissue where her almost severed leg hadn't quite healed up right because her body had been too exhausted to smooth out the regenerating flesh. "Oh, that's a sad sight. A limitation of your incredible regeneration ability. Your doctors will need to know that. We don't want them to scar your pretty face."

They let her rest the first night, but then a man came in, covered in all white. "Get up, filthy little bitch."

That's what they called her for the next five years. She didn't eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom unless they commanded it of her. She'd lost frightening amounts of weight. She'd been thin her whole life, but she'd never ever been so skeletal. Her muscles atrophied so she was weaker than a newborn kitten. She stopped fighting every man she could get her fingers in. She didn't have the strength. She still fought, but only after careful planning. She always failed. They dragged her around by her hair so much, she wanted to chop it all off. She'd had the opportunity a few times, but the thought of how much Red loved her long hair made her stop. She'd slit her throat instead. When she woke up the second attempt, she was chained back to her bed, "God, just let me die!"

"You are nothing, you have nothing, you are no better than dirt." Was the response.

If she cried, the masked men would cut her, and she'd watch the flesh knit back together. When she tried to fight them and got free of her bindings, they'd gut her. By the time she woke from the blood-loss, her body was always finished healing.

The gas was the worst though. It would fill her tiny room and she'd hear those words, "You are nothing, you have nothing, you are no better than dirt." over and over through the speakers as hallucinations racked her, each more terrifying than the last.

Always her family, always watching them die, over and over.

In her dreams, she saw Red, whole and happy, like she was sitting down looking up at him. They would always jolt her awake from those dreams, like they knew what she was dreaming about.

Once she stopped thinking of her family, things got easier, "I am nothing, I have nothing, I am no better than dirt."

"Good little bitch, you can eat out of my hand today." Her captor told her. At one time, she'd known his name, but that memory was long gone.

Months later, and she knew his name.

Jonathan Crane, and he loved her. She was his wife, Mina, and she lived to serve him.

They'd given her the fear gas again, pinned her to the floor by her wrists while her head was filled with images of people she couldn't remember. "They won't stop! Make it stop!" She cried, sobbing, "It hurts, it hurts so bad."

Crane had come in then, and knelt beside her, a clear mask on so at last she could see his face at last, "There, there, Kitten. If you're a good girl, all of this will go away. We can get you some pretty dresses, and you can start eating real food again. How does that sound? Do you want to be a good girl?"

"Yes." She whispered, voice hoarse from screaming. "Yes! I want to be a good girl! Just make it stop!"

They'd finally broken her.

Crane nodded, pulling the knives out of her wrists, watching the blood smear over her bare skin, "You are lovely, Kitten." He fingered some of her long hair, grunting in disapproval at the blood clotting in it. "You've made a mess of yourself. Oh, and look at the floor, such a mess." He shoved her away, "Clean it up."

Stunned still in confusion, he hit her, "Lick it up, little kitten. You wanted to be a good girl, remember?"

"Yes." She repeated.

He slapped her again, "Yes, Sir. From now on, Kitten."

She sniffed back tears. She'd learned a long time ago that they did nothing to help her. "Yes, Sir." With nothing to clean with, she knelt on the ground and licked up the blood.

"Good girl." He said, the praise doing odd things to her head. The blood made her nauseated, and the moment he left her alone, she threw it all up.

He'd come back in instantly, holding her hair back, "Poor little Kitten. Looks like you're sick. Don't worry, we'll help you."

Being sick was much worse than the previous torture. They moved her to a room resembling a hospital room, and strapped her to the bed as they force fed her the blood and bile she'd vomited through a tube they jammed down her throat. It took three times before it all stayed down. She'd never wanted it to all end so badly.

"You should have been a good girl." Crane chastised her as she lay sweating and shaking from the effort not to be sick. "I told you to clean it up, and you made an even bigger mess. You're not going to be so messy anymore, are you?"

"No, Sir." She answered, jaw trembling.

Crane leaned close, and she expected him to hit her, but instead, he pressed a kiss to her cheek, "Very good, Kitten."

The next move she made was to his rooms, as his wife.

The first time he touched her with his intent evident, she closed her eyes and turned her head. He grabbed her chin, "Don't close your eyes, Kitten." He stood, leaving her alone on the bed, "I'll turn the lights off, I don't want to scare you."

"No, Sir!" She yelled in protest. He looked at her sharply, a look that usually meant she was going to be beaten for her insolence. She stuttered to save herself, "Please, come back. Just, don't turn the lights off, please. Please, leave the lights on."

He grinned, "Good girl, if you want the lights on, we'll have them on, whatever makes this most comfortable for you. It's been so long after all."

When he touched her again, she really was broken.

She didn't enjoy sex with him. He was too boney, too...something she couldn't put her finger on. Sometimes, he'd turn the lights off before sex, and she'd have these excruciating images in her head of sex with some man she couldn't name. Those images were better than what she was getting with Crane, but that only made it hurt worse. She wanted something she couldn't have. She'd rather the images left her alone. She was Crane's wife, she shouldn't have thoughts of another man. She tried to get them to go away. She learned quickly not to refuse Crane though, even when he turned the lights off. Refusal earned her a week of being tortured awake in her first room before they took her back to Crane and he had his way with her exhausted body anyway. Once she stopped subconsciously fighting him, things got better. The images started going away. The other man disappeared, and all that was left was Crane.

One day, he was stroking her hair as she rest her head against his leg. His gentleness was rare. And it had been so long since he'd used the gas on her. Maybe she was finally pleasing him. He spoke softly, hand continuously moving. "You had a child. Do you remember?" If he said she had, then it must have been true, so she nodded. Vaguely, she remembered being pregnant, feeling her child move inside of her, the odd mixture of joy and trepidation. Crane smiled at her, and she lived for it. "She was a little thing. Pretty and dark haired, like you. She was ours."

"Ours?" Kat asked, wincing. She wasn't supposed to talk without permission.

His hand didn't stop. She hadn't angered him with her speech. "Ours." He confirmed. "You let her die."

"Me?" Kat echoed, lifting her head from his leg to look at his face, tiny red curls flitting through her mind.

He stroked the side of her face, "It's okay. I've been helping you. You were so distraught by her death that you lost your mind. I've been trying to get you back for so long. Do you feel safe, precious one?"

"Yes." She answered instantly, her head trying to supply images of her supposed daughter, "Can I see her? A picture? I can't remember what she looks like."

He smiled again, "Of course." He showed her a picture of a little girl, "Her name was Elise."

"Elise Crane?" Kat pondered, taking the photo slowly from his hand. The child in it was dark haired, like both of them, but nothing like the red curls in her head. She knew better than to question him though, and took to memorizing every one of the child's features, "What happened to her?"

"You weren't strong enough to protect her. The Justice League, they killed her because they saw how happy we were." He whispered into her ear. "They have to pay."

"They have to pay." Kat echoed, looking into his eyes, picture pressed to her chest, "But I wasn't strong enough before."

Another pleasant stroke, "I know, Kitten, but my friends, they're going to make you strong again, if you let them."

"Anything." She said softly, "If they killed our daughter, they need to pay. I need to help."

He beamed at her, "They told me you weren't ready, but I knew you were. You've been so good, Kitten."

The League of Shadows took her then.

Instead of flesh tearing, it was muscles being rebuilt, and bruises constantly littered her tanning skin. Many of the members avoided her, and she had no idea why. Sometimes, the whispered name 'Talia' would reach her, but she rarely gave it any thought. Under the tutelage of the League of Shadows, she grew strong. They gave her some protection too, when Crane came to visit, he was not allowed to bring his fear gas or to strike her. She finally had power over him, and she loved it because she didn't love him. Perhaps the loss of their child had killed any love she'd once felt for him, but when her friend Barsad came to tell her that Crane was dead, she couldn't have cared less. They started letting her go on missions, and sometimes, if she'd gone a while without offending anyone, they'd let her go out on her own. She lived for those days, when she'd be able to don normal clothes and wander the city.

"Raven, over here!" A young female yelled.

The voice shouldn't have caused her a second glance, but it did. A teenaged girl with bright red curls was waving above the crowd where she'd perched herself on top of a stack of crates. A dark haired girl moved to the bottom of the stack, scowling, "Get down from there. You're fourteen, not four."

The red head appeared not to hear her friend, "Raven, just look at all of this! It's beautiful!"

The dark one scowled, "Yes, the desert markets are beautiful, but get down! We've got things to do. Don't make me get you down myself, Lian." Kat's heart jumped at the name Lian. It didn't make sense. Her daughter's name was Elise, Crane had told her so. Head spinning in confusion, she ran back to her home.

A few years later, she saw the girl again. She was almost grown by then, walking hand and hand with a boy through the streets of Gotham. Kat couldn't resist following them, for hours, back to a large mansion on the outskirts of town.

Over the next few years, any time she was near Gotham, she'd return to that house. And one day, the red head went into the empty house with her man, dressed in all white. From her spot in one of the trees, Kat fell asleep, into her nightmares, jolting awake when a scream echoed from the house. Standing in the shadows, she watched for several more minutes, seeing a flash of white in what she'd realized was the kitchen window. Lian was standing there, searching the darkness for something, a hand on the head of the massive puppy that often roamed the grounds.

Kat drew farther back into the shadows where she was certain the blue eyed child couldn't see her. She forced herself away from Gotham after that, and didn't see those red curls until one night as she stole from STAR labs.

"Don't move." The girl said, pointing an arrow at her, form perfect.

Kat paused, not looking, "Let me go, and we won't have to fight." She said silkily.

"I can't do that, you're stealing." The girl said.

"You must have skills to be involved with the Justice League." Kat said, surprised that she hadn't noticed before that the red headed girl she was uncontrollably obsessed with was part of the Justice League. She could tell it was her by the curls though, they were unmistakable, even if her pretty face was covered. Kat held an olive branch to the girl in her mind. "If you wanted, you could steal too. I almost didn't know you were coming up on me. You breathe too loudly though. You're anxious, not collected."

"I don't need someone like you telling me what I am." She hissed.

"So you're not going to let me just leave with what I want?"

"No." The girl said firmly.

"You're young, so I'm gonna try not to kill you." Kat said, knowing as she spoke that she could never hurt the girl with red curls.

The girl, Lian, scoffed, "Who are you?"

Kat was behind her in an instant, arms wrapped around her in a mockery of a hug. Lian struggled, but her movements were distracted, disjointed, and hardly effective against someone like Kat. "Sorry, little girl. It's just not your day. I like your spunk though, hopefully you live. I'd like to see you all grown up and worth my time." As she slid the short blade between the girl's ribs, she made sure not to do too much damage. She was with the League, they'd be there soon to help her, Kat just needed her out of the way.

"I'm going to get what I came for." Kat whispered as she lay the girl gently down, blue eyes watching her every movement as Lian started foaming at the mouth. Kat wanted to stay, to hold the girl, to soothe her panic, but she couldn't. She grabbed what she needed and left, trying to put the red curls out of her mind.

It wasn't that easy though. Not at all. When the red haired man ripped her mask from her face a night later, she knew her days of going under the radar were over, and red haunted her dreams again.

* * *

**Present:**

"The DNA matches up perfectly. This woman is Kat. There's no sign of cloning." Dick said slowly.

"It's impossible." Bruce snapped, "We buried her. Seventeen years ago."

Selina rubbed his shoulders, trying to keep the both of them calm as she said, "That's right. We _buried_ her. We _buried _our daughter. We need to see for ourselves."

"No." Red answered instantly.

Selina set her jaw, like he'd seen Kat do so many times before, Lian too, "Yes, Red, we need to know. If that's really my daughter, I want to know."

That's what found the small group standing over Kat's grave three days after her forty-third birthday. The men that had been called to exhume the coffin of Bruce Wayne's dead daughter were confused, but did what they were told.

Selina cried out when they opened the coffin, turning into Bruce's side, clutching his pressed suit. "Oh my God!"

The coffin was empty, just as she'd feared and hoped, but she hadn't been prepared to see the inside stained with streaks of old blood, the satin shredded.

Red knelt next to the coffin, touching a hand to the blood, face white in shock, "She did wake up. We buried her and she wasn't really dead. We should have waited."

Bruce was still, "Obviously she woke up in the coffin, tried to claw her way out. We had no way of knowing she would wake up. She wasn't healing. She was dead."

Red stood, carding a hand through his hair as he turned away. He couldn't look any more. "Yeah, well, someone knew it would take more to kill her, and they dug her up."

"Who?" Selina asked softly, although she knew the answer. They all did.

Bruce held her tight, trying to keep images of a terrified Kat suffocating in her own coffin out of his head as he said, "Who else? The Light."

* * *

_"Catch me as I fall_  
_Say you're here and it's all over now_  
_Speaking to the atmosphere_  
_No one's here and I fall into myself_  
_This truth drives me_  
_Into madness_  
_I know I can stop the pain_  
_If I will it all away_  
_If i will it all away_

_[Chorus:]_  
_Don't turn away_  
_(Don't give in to the pain)_  
_Don't try to hide_  
_(Though they're screaming your name)_  
_Don't close your eyes_  
_(God knows what lies behind them)_  
_Don't turn out the light_  
_(Never sleep never die)_

_I'm frightened by what I see_  
_But somehow I know_  
_That there's much more to come_  
_Immobilized by my fear_  
_And soon to be_  
_Blinded by tears_  
_I can stop the pain_  
_If I will it all away_  
_If i will it all away"_

**Whisper  
By: Evanescence**

* * *

Hope you guys are still with me! If you looked close enough, you'll see some evidence of where Lian's getting her nightmares from. Keep in mind what she said about being connected to her family members, she was able to track Damian down using her power after all!

Anyway, next chapter, Lian's curiosity gets the best of her again! She's not at all like her parents, is she?

Review please!

-Jenn


	5. Human

Back to Lian and the present!

* * *

**Human:**

Lian stretched slowly, basically a hodgepodge of yoga and every other warm up she'd ever been taught. Muscles screamed in protest all along her side, but the pain didn't race through her and she could still breathe, so she took those as good signs and kept moving. Bart was glaring at her from where she'd tied him down. He could get out if he wanted, but they both knew he wouldn't, as long as she didn't wince too much. Lian cast a glance over to him, amused by his glare, "Babe, stop looking at me like that. You just had to try to stop me."

"You just got released from bed rest an hour ago." He growled out.

"I know." She said, still weakened by the fever that had only just left her.

"Why do you have to be so stubborn?" Bart moaned.

Lian settled herself astride his lap, eyes as fiery as her hair, "Oh stop it, you love that about me. One of my best qualities." She kissed his jaw, "That and I'm a great kisser."

He chuckled, far too pleased by the sudden turn of events, "Very true."

She kissed behind one of his ears, rendering him a pile of red and yellow goo, "Good. I'm done with all that for today, but I want to get some target practice in. You game?"

Bart let out a half strangled laugh, "Oh, babe, at this point, I'm game for anything you want to do."

Lian smiled at her easy victory, "So if I untie you are you going to stop driving me up the wall in all the wrong ways?" He nodded into another kiss, "Alright, Gearhead. Let's go make sure I'm still one of the best sharpshooters in this place. Grandpa be damned."

Bart followed her closely, "When are we going back to the Titans?"

Lian frowned at his question, "I don't know. You're based out of the Watchtower anyway, and they haven't needed me down there at all so far. What's the hurry?"

"No hurry, just miss playing Vid-games with the guys." He said.

She nodded, "Yeah, I've missed Rae, but I'm not leaving until my Grams does. She never spends so much time up here, and Isis has been following me everywhere."

Bart was amazed that she had focused on her grandmother and not on his blatant lie. "I haven't noticed Isis."

Lian gestured to the ceiling, and he blanched. Isis was walking along the exposed pipes of the sprinkler system, perfectly balanced on one inch pipe. "Was settled on the lip of an air vent in the gym." She whistled and the cat dropped into her arms. Lian stroked behind the cat's ears, "What are you up to, you crazy thing? Is my Grams having you follow me again? Where is she anyway?" Cat propped on her uninjured side, Lian checked her phone, "Raven said she'd be up here to see me again today."

"Must be busy." Bart commented, sharing a far too cognizant look with the cat. Really, the cat was freaky, and he knew at least thirty years old. Way freaky, but then again, Selina could be her own brand of freaky. It lurked right behind the overtly mothering affect she often had, but if you looked close enough, it was there. She, Damian, Bruce, and Red had been gone all afternoon. He'd been trying to keep Lian from noticing.

Lian shrugged, "Raven's never let me go so long without meditating with her. It's just odd."

"Maybe she's happy with your progress?" Bart offered.

Lian glared at him skeptically, "Progress? I'm virtually a crippled empath, Bart. It's all I can do to stay in my own head. Raven's just the empath that doesn't have better things to do than to mind me. Except for taking care of her own issues that is."

"Issues?" Bart asked, slipping Lian's phone back into the pocket of her shorts and taking her freed hand in his, waving at Virgil as they walked past him.

Lian's anxiety played across her face at the close quarter contact, but she shook it off, focusing on Bart and his hand in hers, "Yeah, Raven's got a serious case of genophobia."

Bart frowned, "Geno-what?"

Lian shook her head, pulling him to a stop outside the door to the practice range. "Nothing, never mind. It's girl-talk anyway. Do you hear that?"

He listened carefully, but didn't hear anything, "No, I don't."

Frowning, she pulled him into the range and picked out her favorite gun, handing him his. "Just try to outshoot me, Gearhead."

He laughed, "You're on, Princess." They shot for an hour, until Bart noticed her complexion paling. He took the gun from her, clicking on the safety, "Alright, Princess, it's time for you to get back to bed."

She groaned, "I'm not sleepy, I'm just...tired. If that makes any sense."

"Yup, know the feeling. Like if I don't eat enough and run too much." He said, picking her up. Lian leaned into his chest, for once not protesting to him treating her like the princess she was. He curled up in bed next to her, "You get some rest, I'll wake you up when it's time for dinner."

Her eyes were already fluttering shut as she mumbled, "Okay."

When she woke up, the clock beside their bed read that it was eleven-thirty at night. Bart snored peacefully next to her, so when she got up to satisfy her growling stomach, she brushed a kiss to the side of his head. On her way back from the mess-hall, Lian's empathy picked up a concentrated surge of distress.

Lian followed the pulling emotions to an observation room, the door cracked open ever so slightly.

It was enough for her to hear inside.

"The coffin was empty, Bruce. The DNA says it's her. Why are you being so stubborn about this?" She heard her grandmother say, voice far more harsh than usual.

"Because, Selina, our daughter is dead!" Her grandfather yelled back.

She heard her Uncle Damian next, "Would you both please stop! J'onn or M'gann just need to find out where she's been these last seventeen years. We can figure out what to do after."

Her grandfather spoke again, "We know what she's been doing, Damian. She's been stealing. But not only has she been stealing, she's been killing."

"So?" Selina protested, "You've killed before! Hell, I've killed before!"

"Not like that. She doesn't even give those people a fighting chance. Lian's the only one who's lived to tell about it." Bruce snapped back.

Lian shivered as her father spoke, "Exactly. She could have killed Lian like all the others, but she didn't. I have to believe that even though she doesn't remember who she is, deep down, she remembers Lian."

Her grandfather didn't like that. "You're all so naive! That's a cold blooded killer in there, that's not Kat!"

Lian lost her composure as her suspicions on the topic of conversation was confirmed. "Kat?"

The four in the room froze at her whispered word.

She saw her father turn to face the door, horror on his face, "Lian, wait!"

Lian moved too fast for the four of them though, closing the mechanical door and sealing it shut from the outside with a program key that would take even her Uncle Damian and grandfather working together at least fifteen minutes to crack. She might be a faulty empath, but she was one of the brightest computer oriented minds in the world. They couldn't open the door, and she'd crashed communications inside it. Their personal cellphones wouldn't even work. She'd written the code to protect the Watchtower from an internal attack, but now she was using it to keep her family in one room without any connections to the outside world. She couldn't let them stop her.

She walked with purpose to the holding cell down the hall that the screen in that room was linked to. Cracking the code on the door was a joke. She only burned two of her fifteen minutes getting past the protections someone had obviously put up to keep her out. They underestimated her though. Her family always did.

The door slid open, and she kept herself calm as the motion detecting lights flicked on. The woman chained to the wall gasped when she saw her, shock on her face for an instant before a well trained mask slid over, "Hello, little one." She smiled, "I'm not sure it's been long enough. The fact that you're upright with that injury I gave you is a testament to your strength, but you're less of a match for me right now than you were five days ago."

"I'm not here to fight you." Lian said, amazed that she was keeping her voice so steady. "Do you recognize me?"

She felt guilt on the other end of the bond she'd sent out, and just a flash of fear. "No."

"You're lying." Lian said, stepping closer. She was petite, not tall like her mother had been, but with the woman sitting, she was in the dominant position. She'd learned interrogation techniques from the best after all.

"I don't recognize you."

"You're lying."

"I don't know who you are."

"Truth." Lian determined, "But not the same thing as recognizing me." She held out her phone, a picture on the screen, "Now tell me, do you recognize yourself?"

Kat stared at the photo. It was of the red haired man who had captured her, only younger, a woman, and a baby girl with a head of fiery red curls. The same curls the girl staring down at her had, "That's you?"

"Yes." Lian answered, "And the woman, that's you."

Kat recognized herself, she did, but she was younger too. Younger than Kat could remember being, "I don't understand."

"This is the only picture anyone ever took of all three of us." Lian told her, "The only picture anyone took of me, Lian, and my parents, Red and Kat Harper."

"Your parents?" Kat asked, frowning, "Sorry, little one, but you all have the wrong woman. My name is Mina, I was married to a man named Jonathan, and my daughter's name was Elise."

The words didn't ring as lies, but there was a small twinge of uncertainty. "The first time we met, why didn't you kill me?"

"Didn't feel like it."

Lian shook her head, "You killed every other person in that building. Apparently I'm the only person you've left alive."

Kat scoffed, "That means nothing. So I didn't feel like ending your short life. Most people would be grateful."

"Not me. I want you to tell me why." Lian demanded.

"I don't know!" Kat yelled, "I don't know! I just didn't want to kill you! It doesn't matter, little girl, it doesn't matter at all. I'm not that woman! I'm not your mother! Leave me alone!"

Lian severed the connection, the influx of emotions startling her from both sides. "Okay." She whispered, hurt racing through her. She heard the door open and felt arms wrap around her. She ignored them, "You are her, I know it. I can feel you in my soul."

"You're all crazy!" Kat screamed as the arms pulled Lian out of the room.

Red turned his daughter around in his arms, "Lian, why the hell would you do that?"

Lian glared up at him, blue eyes cold, "I had to do something. You guys were just going to keep lying to me. How long has she been here? Hours, days?"

"We were trying to protect you." Red said, hoping she would understand.

Lian jerked away from him. "I don't need you to protect me."

"You're my daughter, that's all I know to do." He said lamely, hands reaching towards her again.

Lian surged forward, shoving him, "Well learn to do something else! I'm not a little girl anymore! I HATE you!"

The words were out before she could stop them, fear and confusion bringing them to life as her pride and guilt urged her feet into running away.

Bart was standing outside their room, a knowing expression on his face. "You okay?"

"How much did you hear?" Lian asked, not liking the expression on his face at all.

"Enough." He said, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

Lian pushed his hand away. With her emotions so raw, even the briefest touch of his bare hand seared through her. "Did you know?"

He shrugged, "Yesterday I overheard them talking, but I had no idea about what. M'gann threatened to lobotomize me if I so much as mentioned the incident to you. I didn't know anything, so I didn't say anything."

She sighed, leaning into his chest. "You were trying to protect me."

Bart kissed the top of her head, "Not really, I was just saving my own ass. M'gann's one scary lady."

"She likes you."

"No, Conner likes me. There's a difference, a very, very big difference." He rebuffed playfully. "Conner doesn't lobotomize people when he gets upset, he just beats the snot out of them."

"You're terrible." Lian said, although she knew he was telling the truth, M'gann and Conner were on very different levels.

"I know."

"I want to go to bed." She said softly.

Bart pulled her into a real kiss, ignoring her weak protest. "I love you, Li."

She smiled weakly, her eyes red with the tears she was trying to keep back, "I love you too." When he popped The Little Mermaid onto the screen in their room, she said the words again.

* * *

Red stared after his daughter in shock. "I- what?"

Selina put a hand on his shoulder, "Red, she didn't mean it."

"Yes, she did. Lian never says anything she doesn't mean." He spat.

Selina resisted the urge to slap him, "She's upset, rightfully so. We should have told her from the start."

"Oh really, and when did you decide that?"

Selina shrugged, "It's what I've said from the start."

Red rolled his eyes, "You didn't say a damned thing."

"Well I thought it. Lian's not a child, and she's not ignorant." Selina said easily.

"She is a child, and it's my job to protect her!" Red yelled at her.

Selina slapped him. "Lian is not a child."

"Yes, she is, she's nineteen years old!"

"You forget, she's married and has done a whole hell of a lot more growing up than any normal nineteen year old." Selina hissed back.

Red opened his mouth, but Bruce slammed his cane onto the ground. "Enough."

They both looked to the man. Selina cooed, "Oh, Bruce, relax."

He chuckled darkly, looking through the glass at where Kat was sitting, "She may not be a full League member, but she knows damned well what she's doing. Lian is my granddaughter after all."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Red asked.

"Look." Bruce ordered, gesturing to the glass with his cane. "She did more in five minutes than we've done in three days."

The woman in the room was rocking back and forth in her chair, lips moving silently. Had her hands been free, it looked like she'd be pulling on her hair, "What's she saying?" Red asked. They'd never gotten any sort of reaction out of her like that before.

"I don't know." Bruce said, but Selina pressed the screen to turn the sound on.

Kat's soft voice filled the small observation room, "I am nothing, I have nothing, I am no better than dirt."

Red felt sick, and swayed slightly, "What the hell did they do to her?"

Bruce's eyes were dark, "I don't know, but we're going to find out. And Lian's going to help. You're both wrong. Lian is Lian. She'll always be different. Like a flickering flame."

* * *

_"I can fake a smile_  
_I can force a laugh_  
_I can dance and play the part_  
_If that's what you ask_  
_Give you all I am_

_I can do it_  
_I can do it_  
_I can do it_

_But I'm only human_  
_And I bleed when I fall down_  
_I'm only human_  
_And I crash and I break down_  
_Your words in my head, knives in my heart_  
_You build me up and then I fall apart_  
_'Cause I'm only human"_

**Human  
By: Christina Perri**

* * *

Yet again, the next chapter is almost done! Let me know how you guys like this one!

-Jenn0509


	6. Young and Beautiful

**Young and Beautiful: (Four Years after Red Mirror)**

"What do you mean by she wants Damian?" Selina snapped at Dick.

The young man glared at her, "Exactly what I just said. Talia intends to take Damian back to the League. He's her son after all."

"No, he's not. Damian was never hers, he's always been mine. I will not let her take him from me." Selina growled. She'd already lost Kat, she wouldn't lose Damian too.

Bruce put a hand on her shoulder, "Selina, no one's taking him anywhere he doesn't want to go. He's eighteen."

"So you're saying we just let our son run off with a psychotic mass murderer?" She yelled, outraged by what he was saying to her.

He shook his head, "No, Selina. We won't let him go, but he's got to make the decision for himself. Do you understand?"

Selina lunged at her love, "Don't patronize me!" Dick caught her though, easily keeping Bruce out of her reach.

Dick chuckled darkly, "Man, Bruce, you sure do know how to pick 'em, don't you?"

Selina stilled in his grasp, "Excuse me? Did you just put me in the same category as that crazy Lazarus Pit loving bitch?"

"Selina." Bruce said stiffly, his mild amusement at her outrage being smothered by the fact that his taste in women left a lot to be desired most of the time. Morbidly enough, his relationship with Selina was the healthiest one he'd ever had.

She shrugged out of Dick's hold, giving him an expression that would have withered most men. He just grinned back. Sometimes she really hated the oldest of Bruce's adoptive children. Dick was a dick ninety-five percent of the time. That percentage dropped considerably when a certain newly arrived alien was in the room. And he thought she was messed up. At least she wasn't a pedophile. Yes, she knew that the bubbly girl was far older than she looked, but still, it was fun to watch Dick squirm. If the girl didn't annoy her so much she'd have her over all the time.

That night at dinner, Bruce posed Talia's proposition to Damian while Red preoccupied himself with Lian on the other end of the house.

Damian stared at his parents, "She wants me to join the League of Shadows. Does she not realize I'm kind of a free agent? I don't want to join anything, especially not with her. I don't even know her!"

That had ended that, and Selina had beamed for a week.

Talia was not so easily dissuaded.

Selina and Damian had been at their favorite Mexican food joint and had taken the initiative to start walking, enjoying the sights while waiting on Bruce to go get the car. Talia attacked them. Or rather, she threw Damian away and started beating on Selina.

It had been years since she'd been in a real fight, but Selina wasn't about to let the crazy eyed bitch kill her and take their son. She fought with everything she had.

They ended up on a pedestrian bridge, sending the civilians scattering to get out of the way of the well trained cat-fight. Talia pinned Selina down, twisting one of her arms behind her, pushing hard enough that the muscles screamed. "You've filled his head with lies. His place is beside me." Talia hissed into her ear, accent thick as she pressed down on Selina's throat with an elbow.

Selina's silent prayers were answered when her free hand found a loose piece of rebar about a foot and a half long resting on the bridge. Instinct caused her to thrust the metal into the other woman's chest. Talia gasped, looking down at herself before locking eyes with Selina.

Panic filled Selina, "Oh, God, no, no, no, no!" She pressed her hands around the bar, holding it still, "I-I didn't mean to. Hold on, we'll get help."

Talia smiled up at her, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, "Perhaps you are worthy." She put her hands over Selina's. "You bested me in battle. Take care of them." Her deranged smiled still in full force Talia jerked the bar from herself. Selina screamed, and Talia was dead in seconds.

Selina fell back from the woman's corpse, vomiting over the side of the bridge. Her vision blurred right before she heard Bruce's voice, "Selina!" He fell to his knees at her side, pulling her into his arms.

She was half mad by the experience, "I killed her."

He nodded, wiping blood from her face, "I know. Are you hurt?"

"My shoulder." She whispered, leaning close to his chest.

Bruce kissed her, careful of her injured shoulder. "I can't lose you, Selina."

"I couldn't lose him." She said, wondering where her little eighteen year old boy had gone. Had he seen her kill his other mother? Would he hate her?

Bruce wasn't looking at her anymore, but farther down the bridge. Damian was standing over Talia's body, his long back hair freeing itself from it's ties. Selina watched as he knelt beside the woman and closed her eyes for the last time. "Damian." Bruce called.

Her beautiful boy turned to look at them. He knelt beside them, his expression unreadable, "Do you hate me?" She asked, not bearing to hear the answer.

Damian gave her a tiny smile, taking one of her battered hands in his, "No, Mom. I could never hate you."

Selina passed out with a smile on her face.

Three days later, she woke up. The first thing she noticed was a rather large bump next to her under the covers, and a tiny hum of power in her head, "Lian?" She asked, lifting the blanket to see a head of red curls. She couldn't help but smile, carding the fingers of a bandaged hand through her granddaughter's hair, pleased to see Isis curled up in the toddler's chubby arms. He would always look after her, even when Selina couldn't.

"She wanted to sleep in here with you." Bruce explained from his place across the room.

She hadn't noticed him, but calming hum of Lian's power kept her heart from racing in surprise, "What did you tell her?"

"What could we? She's four. All we said was you had a few 'boo-boo's and needed a nap." He said the last word like a curse, and Selina smiled.

"You still can't get used to that, can you? Don't worry, she won't be this little forever. You can start teaching her all about your microscope and computer in a handful of years, I'm sure." Selina quipped, ignoring her shoulder ache to haul Lian closer so she could cuddle her more securely.

Lian stretched against her, but didn't wake, snuggling her face into Selina's uninjured shoulder. "I should never have left you."

"What?" Selina asked, her attention drawn from Lian to Bruce.

"Twenty-one years ago, I shouldn't have slammed that door in your face. I'll never forgive myself for that." Bruce said, looking more still than she'd ever seen him.

For a long time, Selina didn't speak. It had taken her a long time to forgive him for that. And then she realized that she'd never properly absolved him of guilt that was hers. "I was a different person then." She began, cupping his face in one of her hands. "I stole from you, I hurt you. How were you supposed to know I really was pregnant? Back then it was my job to lie. You were right to be cautious."

"I was a bastard to you. My parents would have been horrified by the way I acted." He said, guilt gnawing at him even over twenty years later. And he'd just watched Selina almost die in a fight with another woman he'd wronged.

"No offense, but your parents are dead, Bruce. Yes, you were a bastard, but now you're my bastard, so that's all that really matters, right?" Selina said softly.

"Not really." He said, sinking to one knee by the bed. "Selina Kyle, would you do me the incredible honor of becoming my wife? I'll never leave you again, no more slammed doors."

Selina hid her shock behind a cocky laugh, "No more slammed doors? You forget, there's going to be a teenager in the house. There will be more slammed doors."

He stared, annoyance coloring his face, "Selina. I just asked you to marry me. Focus."

She laughed again before she noticed the jewelry box in his hand. "Bruce!"

The man under the hood smiled again, "I need an answer, Selina."

She reached out and picked up the string of pearls resting on the velvet pad, "Your mother's pearls. And...oh!" In the center of the string of pearls was a diamond ring, white gold from her brief assessment, with a round cut diamond no less than six carats framed by half carat emeralds.

Bruce shook his head, saying sternly, "Selina."

She jerked her attention to his face, and stared there for a few minutes. She loved him, she really did, but a great part of her had never wanted to be married. Of course she'd never wanted to be a mother either, but it had happened and she had failed spectacularly. Just once, she wanted to fling herself into something not knowing the outcome, just to trust that he would catch her when she fell, "This is forever, right, Bruce?"

He nodded, "You're the only woman I've ever really loved, and that's never going to change."

Tears burned the back of her eyes, "Even when I'm old and wrinkly?"

That got her another smile. "I'm older, I'll be old and wrinkly first."

She blinked the tears back, smiling back at him, "Well we're both in fantastic shape for our ages, so we might as well give it a try, right?"

"Is that a yes?" He asked cautiously.

"Yes!" Selina cried, throwing her arms around him and doing her best not to faint from the pain in her shoulder or squish Lian.

She was up walking around a week later, standing in front of the big windows overlooking the back yard, watching Red chase Lian around the green. Faintly, she could hear Lian's shrieks of laughter and Red's deep chested chuckles. "How are you feeling, Ms. Kyle?" Alfred asked, startling her.

Selina hid her anxiety behind her well crafted mask before she turned around to face him, "I've felt better, but I can't complain. Bruce has taken good care of me."

The butler regarded her stiffly. Bruce hadn't allowed him into his room while Selina had been recovering. In many ways, Bruce had turned into a lion protecting his mate, the only reason she was out of the room was because, yet again, Gotham had needed Batman.

Alfred sniffed, "Yes, well Master Bruce is quite keen on you."

"You don't approve?" Selina asked, the ring on her left hand feeling like it weighed five hundred pounds.

"No." Alfred said firmly, "You destroyed him once, you'll do it again."

"By hiding Kat from him?" She asked, her gut churning dangerously.

Alfred was glaring, "By telling him she'd died. He mourned that little girl for years. Did you know he had an artist render drawings of her?"

Selina felt the blood drain from her face, "What?"

"One of the nurses in the hospital gave Bruce a picture of her. That's how he knew she was his in the beginning. He already had a good idea of what she would have looked like. For years he'd hang up the cloak on her birthday and lock himself in his room with those drawings." Alfred said, shaking in hardly disguised anger.

He hated her. She didn't blame him. "I was scared, Mr. Pennyworth. I was terrified I was going to lose her. They came and told me they could save her, but that I couldn't tell Bruce. For her to live, he had to think she was dead. I was young, hurt, and thought I'd already lost him for good. I couldn't lose her too."

"And we lost her anyway." Alfred said, and Selina saw the hurt in his eyes. He'd cared about Kat too.

"Yes, we did. But she saved the world. She was a hero. I couldn't be prouder to have been her mother. I'll spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of that, and of Bruce's love." Selina said, energy flooding through her.

Alfred's face softened, "Ms. Kyle, we might make a Wayne of you yet. Those pearls look lovely on you."

Selina touched the string with the hand of her uninjured arm, "Thank you, Alfred."

"As you were, Ms. Kyle. I need to go prepare Miss Lian's lunch." Alfred ordered gently.

Selina smiled, "You're too good to us. And thank you, for looking after him. I wasn't ready then, but I promise, I am now."

He smiled, "I know you are. After all, Master Bruce isn't the only one with connections."

"I'll keep that in mind." Selina told him, knowing better than ever where Bruce got his cool collected threatening face from. "I'll go fetch the little one." She walked through the old house, and out onto the yard, Isis following her every step.

"Gramma!" Lian yelled, running in her direction as fast as her four year old legs could carry her. Selina threw her arms out and caught the little thing.

"Hello, sweetheart." She said, holding the little girl close. "What have you and your Daddy been up to?"

"Cops and robbers!" Lian informed her.

Red approached slowly, face red, "Whew, she's one fast little robber!"

"Takes after her Grams, doesn't she?" Selina cooed, letting Lian go so she could chase Isis around the yard.

"Yeah, she does." Red agreed, "I swear though, she makes me feel so old."

"How do you think I feel?" Selina noted with a laugh. "I'm glad you two are close though."

Red nodded, "Yeah, but how long is that going to last?"

"Well, Kat always pretty much hated me. I deserved it though. Lian loves you already, I don't see that changing." Selina said comfortingly.

They both gazed at the tiny redheaded girl as Red muttered, "God, I hope not."

The touch of Bruce's hand on hers brought her to the present. "Sorry?"

He smiled the tiniest bit, "I asked if you wanted to go home and get some sleep."

She shook her head, "No. We're needed here."

Selina stared through the glass at the younger woman there. "She hardly looks forty-three. I know we have fantastic genetics, but she could damn near pass for thirty with her hair done and makeup on."

"They had aged her eight years, it's possible they reverted her to her original age. Perhaps that's why she doesn't remember us." Bruce offered.

"She should remember me. I was a failure as a mother, but I was there." Selina reminded him. "She should remember the little brother she raised mostly on her own."

He shrugged, "Well, part of her remembers Lian."

"Exactly." Selina replied. Since their granddaughter had made her spectacular little move, Kat had been in a tailspin. "She'll destroy herself going on like this."

"She's strong, Selina. She'll figure it out." He assured her.

Selina shot him a sidelong glance, "Wasn't it you who was advising us not to get attached?"

Another tiny smile, more impish than usual, not unlike the one he'd given her when Terry had 'accidentally' discovered the Batcave. She'd almost killed him for that. In many ways, she used Terry to replicate how she should have been with Damian. She was fiercely protective of the boy, even though he wasn't hers. Bruce was still smiling, "That was then, this is now. You were right, she's our daughter. She may be a killer now, but she's still the same person. She's lost right now, but as her family, it's our responsibility to take care of her."

Selina touched his face, guilt spreading through her. "You should have had more than a year knowing her. I'm so sorry."

"Don't mention it again." Bruce said, moving to wrap her in his arms, cane abandoned against the console.

Selina leaned into him, "I can only imagine how he's feeling."

Bruce nuzzled his face into her hair, looking through the glass. "Red's talking to Lian."

"How's it going so far?"

"She's angry, but she's a daddy's girl." Bruce assured her, brushing his lips across her forehead.

Selina's mind wandered back to that blissfully sunny day, where the bond between Red and Lian had almost made the ache Kat had left behind fade. "Yes, she is, isn't she?"

* * *

_"I've seen the world, lit it up_

_As my stage now_  
_Channeling angels in the new age now_  
_Hot summer days, rock 'n' roll_  
_The way you play for me at your show_  
_And all the ways I got to know_  
_Your pretty face and electric soul_

_Will you still love me_  
_When I'm no longer young and beautiful?_  
_Will you still love me_  
_When I got nothing but my aching soul?_  
_I know you will, I know you will_  
_I know that you will_  
_Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?_

_Dear lord, when I get to heaven_  
_Please let me bring my man_  
_When he comes tell me that you'll let him in_  
_Father tell me if you can_  
_Oh that grace, oh that body_  
_Oh that face makes me wanna party_  
_He's my sun, he makes me shine like diamonds"_

**Young and Beautiful  
By: Lana Del Rey**


End file.
